A Trip from Haringey to Ealing via Malaysia ...

At the end of May, I finished an interesting period working on e-Government at Haringey (30 miles from home).
Then in June I took a trip to Malaysia (12,000 miles round trip) and attended an e-Government Conference sponsored by the EU in my wife's home town of Ipoh,(an Ipoh is a tree with poisonous leaves, formerly used in blowpipes, but there are only two Ipoh trees left in the town of Ipoh !!!).
Finally, in July started at the London Borough of Ealing (15 miles from home) working on another interesting e-Government Project.

Racism is alive and well and living in England !

Yesterday, an 18-year-old black teenager was waiting at a bus-stop with his (white) girl-friend.
He ignored verbal abuse from a gang of white youths, but they chased him into a nearby park and he died when they split open his head with an axe.

Some more terrible Headlines in England

1) 'Yesterday, a 27-year-old man was stabbed to death on a bus when he tried to stop a black guy throwing fast food at his girlfriend.'
Nobody tried to stop the killer who just walked calmly away.
2) 'Boy of 14 on murder charge', accused of stabbing a 16-year-old with a knife in an argument.
3) 'Boy, 14, is charged with raping four schoolgirls,' following seven attacks on a 10-year-old girl, two 8-year-olds and a 7-year old.
4) '5,000 people every year die in British Hospitals from a Super Bug' caused by dirty surroundings.
5) 'Mothers and newly-born babies in poorly-run birth wards are at risk' from acute staff and equipment shortages, poor training and weak management.
Britain has one of the worst infant mortality rates in Europe with only Poland and Slovakia being worse, says the OECD

Libraries, Open Web Services and VIEWs

In Local Authorities, Libraries are always a good starting-point to think about Citizen, Customer or Member Data.
Of course, people who develop and work with Library Systems are usually thoughtful, creative people. In fact, they have developed their own VIEWS discussion forum for a 'Vendor Initiave for Enablin Web Services' :-
http://www.views-consortia.org/


Talis is a leading supplier of Library Management Systems which is forward-looking.
Talis has a Project called Keystone to provide Web Services Integration :-
http://www.talis.com/research/keystone/keystone.shtml

Keystone has its own Discussion Forum :-
http://www.talis.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=55&sid=c6de59181a6d681ff0ec69381276d5e9

here's an item about CRM and 'a single source of the truth' :-
http://www.talis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=629

A week of Ups and Downs in London

1) Downs - early in the week the Police issued a warning to Senior Citizens to avoid confrontations with teenage gangs because a number of times this has led to them having heart attacks and dying on the spot.
2) Downs - the next day, a retired person died of a heart attack when he was engaged in a 'Road Rage' incident with another driver who decided to chase him by car.
3) Ups - London was awarded the Olympics. Wow - maybe this country is not so bad after all !
Everybody felt positive and it seemed to show that we could compete and win on the world stage, even though the country is in a terrible mess.
4) Downs - Bombs explode in London, about 50 people die and 700 are injured.
The good feelings about the Olympics are instantly destroyed and replaced by worry, concern and apprehension. I am going to a meeting tomorrow with a Government Department and have been told to arrive 40 minutes early to allow for security checks.
The strange thing is that a survey showed that most British people still think we should be in Iraq and Blair's popularity has gone up !!!
5) Downs - yesterday 20,000 people were evacuated from the centre of Birmingham, (the second largest city in England), as the result of what the Police called 'a serious and credible threat of terrorism'.

Teenage Gangs kill 4 men in 11 days in England

England is getting worse all the time.
Yesterday, newspapers report a common pattern of drunkenness and violence.
This is not just in London, but ranges from Cornwall,(small towns and villages in the South-West) to Manchester, (a large industrial city in the North-West).
Each incident involved Anti-Social Behaviour on the part of drunken teenage gangs,(some involving girls as young as 12) and started with confrontation between the gangs and
respectable husbands and fathers trying to protect their houses or property from vandalism.
Then the incidents ended with the death of the individual - either being beaten with sticks or iron bars or jabbed in the face with a broken glass or beer bottle.

Let's all emigrate !

Here's a book to watch out for ...

David Belchiver is the author of 'The 90-Minute Manager'.
His new book, out in October, is entitled "The Living Dead : The Shocking Truth about Office Life".

Some Newspaper Headlines in Britain

"Teenage Gang kicks man to death for refusing to give them a light"
"14-year-old drowns after being thrown off a bridge into a river by two 16-year-olds even though he told them he couldn't swim"
"Secret film shows pupils running wild in London school while teacher looks on, powerless to stop them"
"Visitors go up by 20% at Bluewater Shopping Centre after ban on youths with hooded tops"
"Girl of 13 youngest to be given Anti-Social Behaviour Order"

Some Newspaper Headlines in the Middle East

"Man in Saudi Arabia beheaded for rape"
"Booby-trapped dog injures Iraqi policeman near Kirkuk"
"Saudi Arabia University returns tuition fees to students who can't get jobs"
"Police Officer in Pakistan sacked for sewing prisoner's lips shut"
"Police vehicles killed 2,000 in a year in the UK"
"Man to serve 20 years in jail for beating Indonesian maid to death over unfinished chores"
"Pakistani Minister was mobbed and beaten at funeral of Muslim scholars"
"Iranian exiles in Canada vow to Blog Iran to democracy"
"Why should you study at UK Middlesex University in Dubai?"
"Disney trusts Feng Shui experts for design new Hong Kong Disneyland"
"Dubai e-Government logo contest won by secretary in Buildings Department"
"You can study to be a Doctor at the University of the Seychelles (American Institute of Medicine)"

Best Practice underpins everything

Having just finished a Study of Indigenous Knowledge among the Orang Asli ('Original People') of Malaysia, it seems to me that Best Practice underpins everything we do in life.
It is variously described as Corporate Social Responsibility,('CSR'), Standard Operating Procedures ('SOPs') or simply as 'How we do things around here'.

e-Government in Malaysia

We are in a city called Ipoh, where my wife is from.
Ipoh is the third largest in Malaysia, with a population of about 600,000 which makes it comparable but somewhat larger than Haringey.
Ipoh is the name of a tree from which the Orang Asli,('Aborigines' of Malaysia), derive a poison that they use with the darts from a blowpipe.
I checked in at our usual hotel in Ipoh to find myself in the middle of a Conference entitled "Best Practices of E-Government and E-City : Vision, Innovation & Opportunities'.
Ipoh and the State of Perak has announced a 5-year budget of £200 million to get E-enabled, starting from nothing.
For some strange reason, the EU and Brussels is helping with this ambitious plan and has established something called 'The EU Ipoh Virtual City'.
This Virtual City has its own Web Site at www.eivc.org.
As a result of this, there were three Brits representing European e-Government expertise of the sort who hang around Brussels trying to get their snouts in the trough.